This is a guest post from John Caulfield, Solutions Director Oracle Ireland  and member of the Irish Software Association (ISA) Executive Council. This is the latest in the series of Irish Software Association and Techbrew events that EI is proud to be associated with.

As a compliment to the work that EI and the ISA have done in helping software companies use partners to win export sales, we’re focusing the next TechBrew (Thurs 9th February @ 7.00pm) on the area.  Held at 4 Dame Lane Dublin 2, TechBrew is an informal gathering of software company management and technology leaders, getting together to chat over a bite and a beer.

In between the networking and beers we’ll cover “Partnering—Is it the fastest and cheapest entry to new markets or does it ultimately cost more?”. Talk to your peers to talk about the best route to market. Find out if you are willing to sacrifice control for coverage. See how you can expand your existing markets, what models work best and identify the best partners options for different markets, and how to managing the channel. Hear practical advice, successes and pitfalls, from those who have gone before you, shared in an informal learning environment.

Confirmed to speak:

• Donagh Kiernan, Founder and CEO, Tenego Partnering, driving international sales for high growth technology companies, through partnering. Donagh helps high growth technology companies drive international sales, through partnering. He focuisses on making current partners effective and securing new partners that are ‘best-fit’ to sell products or services in identified target markets.

If you have some practical experience to offer yourself, why not take ten minutes to share your experiences on the night.

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If you’ve been passing through Dublin Airport this week, you’ve probably noticed the Enterprise Ireland stand ‘ItsHappeningHere‘ and wondered what it’s all about. Click the video to find out about more than 2000 jobs with more than 600 Irish software companies.

If you’re not able to say hello to Anne, David, Rob, Jim, Alan , Jennifer or any of the other EI people taking their turn on the stand, pass on this link to a friend who is home for the holidays.

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This is a guest post from Brendan Lally from the Work Placement Office at The National College of Ireland in Dublin’s IFSC.  At a time where there are more vacancies than applicants in Irish Software companies, Brendan wants to work with you to place an IT student for 6 months in early 2012 within your company.

What is the benefit of taking a student for you as an Employer?

The Work Placement Program at The National College of Ireland is looking for industry partners within Software and Service companies immediately. The students attending the BSc.(Honours) in Software Systems and BSc. (Honours) in Business Information Systems degrees have a solid theoretical base, which they are keen to put into practice.

• Placements provide the ideal opportunity for employers to foster links with the National College of Ireland.

• The opportunity to trial a potential recruit without obligation or target ‘highflyer ’ recruits early.

• Your team can benefit from skilled assistance for specific project work at lower cost.

• Placements can also provide your staff with some valuable people management and mentoring experience.

Where could a student fit into you team?

Some samples of the projects our students worked on in 2011 include:-

• IT development projects
• IT support
• Network administration
• Software development
• Software programming
• Testing
• Web design and development
• Database development

How do I sign up?

The Placements start in late January 2012 for 6 Months. Our 3^rd year IT students are (again) likely to be in high demand for IT related work experience in any sector of industry.

If you are an interested employer, email me at Brendan.lally@ncirl.ie or phone me (Brendan Lally) directly  on 01-4498558. For further details please check out our Employers Brochure on the following link: http://issuu.com/ncicareers/docs/it_placement-2011-w

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Following the success of Ireland@OracleOpenWorld in October, we’d like to follow through and give companies that weren’t able to travel to the event in San Francisco the chance to meet key Oracle People, understand how to work better with Oracle as a Sales channel, and understand what the changes and openings the Oracle Technology roadmap will bring for your Software and Services business.

The event is aimed at C-Level management from current and potential Oracle partners. More details are below; to register please contact Marketing-ie_ie@oracle.com

As Eileen O’Mara of  Oracle says;

We are delighted to invite our partners to attend the Oracle Partner Network Day – Executive Forum. C-Level attendees will learn more about Oracle’s strategic direction and the benefits of being an Oracle Partner. The day will also feature Oracle OpenWorld Technology and Middleware Updates.

Why should you go? Discover more about how to drive your business forward with Oracle. Get the latest executive business updates and strategic viewpoints from senior Oracle executives. Make the most of the fantastic opportunity to network with Oracle executives and experts and other partner executives

 OPN Days Executive Forum Dublin, 1st December 2011

• 13:30     Registrations & Afternoon Tea
• 14.00     Introduction & Positioning – Eileen O’Mara – Oracle Senior Sales Director
• 14.15     Partnership for Growth – Dermot O’Kelly – SVP Alliance & Channels EMEA
• 15.00     Oracle OpenWorld Key Announcements – John Caulfield – Solutions Director
• 15.30     Enterprise Ireland – Irish Software Industry – Supporting Irish Companies Expand and Grow their Business – Jennifer Condon – Divisional Manager, Software and Services
• 16.00     Coffee Break
• 16.15     Partner Success Story – CVidya – Success with Oracle Engineered Systems – Steve McNickle – VP EMEA
• 16.45     Specialization with Oracle: Evolution & Opportunity – Paul Thompson – Senior Director Alliances & Solutions Partner Programs EMEA
• 17.15     Q&A and Wrap-up
• 17:30     Drinks and canapés

Venue: Westin Hotel, Westmoreland Street , Dublin 2

Event Contact; To register please e-mail Marketing-ie_ie@oracle.com Lead organising contact is Kelly-Marie Moore. Contact details are e-mail Marketing-ie_ie@oracle.com or phone +353 1 803 16 30.

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Great video from Armac explaining what they do. It has Airplanes.  It has bundles of cash.  It could save your holiday.  And it’s a cartoon – what’s there not to like?

Much easier to understand than ” Software for Aviation Inventory Managment and Optimization“.

Are you a software company with a good video explaining what you do? Leave a comment, or contact me directly and we’ll try and feature you on Bestconnected.

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This is a guest post from Karl Flannery, current chair of the Irish Software Association, and MD of Storm Technologies.

Having successfully launched the Post-graduate diploma in Product Management with DIT & Software Skillnet, the ISA team is now busily preparing for the Software Industry Awards 2011. This for me has to be one of the key industry events of the year. I find it is a great time to catch up with fellow colleagues in the industry who I don’t get a chance to meet from end one of the year to the next. This industry changes so fast, there is always a lot to talk about!

Tickets are limited, Get them here.

Irish Software Association Industry Awards 2011

Celebrate this year’s best technology companies, people, products and services at the ISA Annual Awards ceremony and gala dinner. Previous winners who have gone on to enjoy great success  include Changing Worlds, Havok & Openet.

This is an unparalleled networking event for the digital technology & software sector and the place to showcase your companies achievements with an anticipated audience of over 400 senior industry executives as well as leading investors and analysts.

The Award categories will include:

• Company of the Year
• Emerging Software Business of the Year
• Technology Software Start up of the Year
• Sales Achievement of the Year
• Technical Innovation of the Year
• Collaboration of the Year
• Corporate Social Responsibility Software Business of the Year
•  Student Award for the Most Commercially Viable Software.

I look forward to seeing you there.

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This is a guest post from Dave Feenan who is a key promoter of the CloudArena Group. Find out more on the CloudArena LinkedIn group.

We are all used to the saying “Water Water everywhere but not a drop to drink”. Change the word “Water to Data” and do we now have “Data Data everywhere but not a byte makes sense”.

The explosion in the increase of data is becoming one of the top challenges for organisations. Historically this increase was viewed as a requirement for additional storage and backup infrastructure. Today thanks to the availability of web-enabled devices, Business Intelligence and Analytics are now a defacto requirement. Gone are the days of yesterday’s spreadsheets and reports to be replaced by modern Dashboard and Real-Time Data access. Business owners and line managers need access to accurate Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and Metrics to enable appropriate decision making. It is not just businesses that are availing of BI. Smart meters will soon arrive into our homes and look at the level of information now provided when you watch live sport on TV.

On Wednesday 19th October, CloudArena will host a free to attend BI and Analytics seminar to discuss this topic. IBM, one of the many organisations taking part, will talk about how they deployed technology to enhance the audience’s real-time engagement at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Microsoft, Fujitsu, Cloud Consulting, Staff Balance and Enterprise Ireland backed companies, Jlizard and Treemetrics will all elaborate on how BI is a game changing advantage for us all.

What can BI do for your organisation? You do not want you to get left behind and to be told “Game, Set and Match” to your competitors by your customers.

This event is part of the Innovation Dublin 2011 Festival.To register www.cloud-arena.com

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12 Irish Companies are Exhibiting on the Enterprise Ireland Stand@ Oracle OpenWorld 2011 in San Francisco. Watch the video to see why LookupPoint, CampusIT, Qumas,  Structure 101,  Vordel,  Ocuco,  iQuate, Mapflow,  Rockall, FeedHenry, Openet and WhiteHouse are investing their time in coming to the event.

Other Oracle BestConnected Stories are here; We expect to have several major announcements from EI client companies during this week.

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Want an event where you take part instead of just listen? Do yourselves a favour by heading out west to Bizcamp 2011, which takes place on Saturday September 10, in the NUI Galway. This is the latest in the series of Bizcamp events which have been held around Ireland.

Organised by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, Bizcamp 2011 ups the ante while taking down the formality a notch or two, and while it’s going to be packed with innovators and people with creative ideas (and, of course, entrepreneurs!), the event is deliberately not about sales pitches.

Ultimately, what happens is that speakers will give a short presentation (usually no longer than 20 minutes), with 10 minutes for open discussion, on a topic of their choice. The great thing about Bizcamp is that the topics vary from adapting your business, innovative marketing, product design and pricing to sourcing finance, engaging with web and social networking and evaluating stress management.

Bizcamp co-organiser and founder of xap.ie, Michael Fitzgerald, reckons that Bizcamp is all about encouraging, mentoring and supporting innovative and ambitious business ventures.

“There’s so much going on in the areas of technology, medical devices and industry in general in the West of Ireland right now. It’s a really exciting time, and we wanted to provide a platform for entrepreneurs to meet with new people outside their main circles to share and learn from each other.”

If you’re around on the day before the event (Friday September 9) , you’ll be pleased to know that a Demobar event takes place in The Oslo, Salthill, at 9pm.This is an informal event where you can view demonstrations of web-based applications, iPhone, iPad & mobile apps, and have a beer (free!) with the people behind these local companies. Demonstrations are on laptops and mobile devices – the guys promise no Powerpoint presentations!

If you’re interested in speaking , or just coming along, add your name to the Bizcamp list here.

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Oracle OpenWorld 2011 is coming up fast – it takes place at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco October 2nd to 6th. Based on the feedback from the similar Microsoft WPC event in July, the quality of the potential contacts, customers and partners you can meet is excellent – not only for the US, but the UK , Europe and worldwide.

A number of Enterprise Ireland client companies are being offered the opportunity to participate in our “Best Connected” Ireland stand at OpenWorld 2011. This is the first EI participation at the event, so we will have a small scale participation in our 1^st year in order to determine EI Client interest.

Competition for space on the Ireland stand at this show will be significant, and registration closes  Wednesday 31st August.  Places are being allocated to qualified client companies on a first come, first served basis.

Image from siliconangle.com

What’s Included?

The following support and services are included in the participation fee:

• EI Client Logos on Stand
  
• Access to all areas & conference.
• Oracle Connect  - Meetings set up facility included in registration.
• Advance workshop in San Francisco. How to sell to Channel partners. How to better partner with Oracle.
• Limited Press & PR Access , Media and PR Services. Additional dedicated PR & Lead Generation Services can be provided at cost.
• Display of  client brochures on stand
• Assistance with Meetings set up / Point of contact
• Pre & Post Event Marketing to Attendees.
• Off Site Networking Reception “Meet the Irish”  for EI Clients and Guests.

For more information on the event please visit the OpenWorld site to find everything you need to know about the event.

The deadline for online booking is Wednesday 31 August 2011. (Register Here)

Tell me more … (more…)

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